churches. It is also a fact that, in the midst of this abounding heresy,
the church of Philadelphia was preserved as was no other church of Asia.
When the followers of Mohammed were sweeping like a whirlwind over the
Eastern empire, ravaging everything before them, Philadelphia remained
an independent Christian city, when _all the other_ cities of Asia Minor
were under the power of the Saracen sword. It held out against the
Ottoman power until the year 1390 A.D., when it surrendered to Sultan
Bayazid's mixed army of Ottoman Turks and Byzantine Christians (?). This
was six years after the death of Wickliffe, "the morning star of the
reformation," who opposed the corruptions of the Papacy, gave the world
the first English translation of the Bible, and sowed the seeds that
soon grew and produced a Huss, a Jerome, and a Luther. So God preserved
the Christians of Philadelphia in the East until he began raising up
others to herald his truth in the West, whose labors soon ripened into
the glorious Reformation of the Sixteenth Century.

His final promise to the overcomer is that he shall be made a pillar in
the temple of God, and receive the name of God, of Christ, and of the
New Jerusalem, or city of God. In some manner the Christian is labelled
with the name of God, whose property he is; with the name of Christ, by
whom he was purchased; and with the name of the New Jerusalem, or city
of God, his inheritance and eternal abiding-place; and he is made a
pillar in the temple of God. By turning to Heb. 12:22, 23, we find that
the general assembly and church of God in this dispensation constitutes,
in one important sense, the New Jerusalem, or city of God, in which the
overcomers abide. "But ye _are come_ unto Mount Sion, and unto the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem ... to the general assembly
and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven." The church
is also styled the house or temple of God, composed of people out of all
nations who "are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,